Feels like im going under!

SusieT

Well done for saying no to the loan. The person wanting you to have one is in effect a salesperson, whereas we not only have nothing to gain from saying what we would do, but most of us have been through what you are going through and are seeing the light at the end of the tunnel, or we have emerged into the light. We can understand the fear/panic/worry/what ifs that you are both going through, and can say that what has been said does work. 
Please show your wife this thread, and she can see that there is life after debt.
As for being evicted, you have a mortgage not a rental and I cannot see you evicting yourselves  

madaboutspots

Is there any chance you can get an appointment at Citizens Advice and take your wife with you for it or speak to StepChange on speaker so you can both hear the call fully? That way she can explain all her fears and have the “genuine professionals” to explain the real situation.

I really think your wife (and of course in turn, you) would benefit on getting onto the same page with this to be able to move forward as a team. SC will be fully supportive and non judgemental. 

Maybe worth a try? You could do with not having the stress of your wife so worried all the time about what is essentially misinformation- you’d both really gain from that.

ladyholly

I cannot add anything that hasnt been said but just wanted to say I hope you feel better soon and can convince your wife that her fears are groundless.

Tink_04

I worry that you have the fear of a ‘marriage ender’ and are wanting to keep
you wife happy and deal with the debt alone - you didn’t rack this up alone, you need to be 100% straight with her and she needs to get on board rather than bury her head. 

I’m sorry if this sounds harsh but this is where you are, it can totally be fixed but you need to both be on the the same team, you can’t protect her from this. It’s messy, but not marriage ending.

fatbelly

NiteEyez1980 said:

The thing is because a 'pro' has told her this (and tbh my wife is quite a fearful person by nature anyway) , as soon as anyone pitches up at our door she's going to go into a meltdown, think I've lied, on a 1 way path to ruination and iall be looking at a divorce. 

Could she ask the 'pro' if he holds the certificate in Money Advice Practice?

That's the gold standard for a debt adviser - worth asking to anyone giving debt advice.

It doesn't mean that you're necessarily getting bad advice if the answer is no (most of the posters here give excellent advice and do not hold that qualification) but if the answer is yes then that person has been though detailed training in debt advice.

Sea_Shell

I know you're fearful of your wife divorcing you over all this, but think about it...where is she able to go, and maintain the "status quo" of not wanting to face the debt and changes to lifestyle required?

She might not like the situation, but I'm not sure she mas much real choice but to accept it and deal with it with you.

I'm not suggesting financial abuse or coercive control, but I guess she might see it that way☹️

It does raise the point though as to where the boundaries lie in a situation like this.

Would some relationship councelling help?  

enthusiasticsaver

NiteEyez1980 said:

Hibguys

Been off this week. Whole face is killing me, Abcess burst so have had the lesion hurting, pain in face, swollen face and all the side effects from the painkillers and antibs you can imagine.

I think I am so run down and stressed that my body has basically waves a white flag.

OK, sourcrates had responded on the stepchange and I'm not sure my mind is in the right place to accurately digest the advice.

My wife has a call from our mortgage broker who got a 'secured' loan company to ring her offering her a way out at about 10% interest which would save us about £300 a month.

She explained our plan and he has basically put the fear of God into her that we will:

Lose our house
Have bailiffs knocking our door
Never get credit again
Mortgage taken away
End up in court 

She has totally gone the other way now and doesn't want to do the plan. 

I was going to do it in Nov and now she has visions of a Eastenders, the moons get evicted from the Vic scenario on Christmas day. 

No joke this will be a marriage ender. If we (I) do this and the harbinger of dooms prophecy comes true! 

First of all I hope you recover from the abscess soon.  It sounds very painful. 

Sourcrates has written a full reply on next steps should you go down the default and DMP route and absolutely none of the consequences above will happen as the debt is unsecured.  They cannot take your house and are unlikely to take court action so no bailiffs or court appearance.  You may not be able to move your mortgage but as long as you stay with your current provider you should be able to get new fixed rate deals as the others expire.  Your credit record will be affected for 6 years.  I think suggesting she finds out more for herself by coming on here where none of us have an axe to grind and many have been in your situation may be reassuring for her.  I am not sure why you think any of this will end your marriage.  Where would she go? 

Secured lenders are much more aggressive in threatening action as they have the security of your house to fall back on which is why it is a very bad idea to turn unsecured debt into secured. Unfortunately it sounds like this one who spoke to your wife  has overstepped the line and is outright lying to her so I would be complaining about him/her.  They have a code of practice and it sounds like they are not following it. 

EssexHebridean

You poor thing trying to deal with all this and the pain of the abscess etc - I really do think you're right though - stress can come out in all sorts of ways in the body can't it. 

I agree with the fact that a complaint should be made about a loan company giving quite such incorrect advice and information purely to try to frighten people into taking a loan from them. Someone else who is in your situation but not had the foresight to ask advice somewhere like this could have been pushed over the edge with that sort of info - horrific. I can't begin to imagine that it can possibly turn out that this company is in any way regulated when I come to think about it - and do wonder if the person concerned is essentially a loan shark. If that IS the case, then you might point out to your wife that HAD you gone the route of taking the loan from them, at the first hint of being unable to pay you really WOULD have had people knocking at the door, and they would be unlikely to be as relatively speaking "nice" as the average debt collection co door-knocker!  

Something else that stands out that you may be able to put in front of your wife - you say that the repayments on the loan she was offered would "save" you£300 a month - but have a little look back at your SOA and just remind yourself how large your deficit was - and then ask her how she thinks you could make even those "reduced" payments? She HAS to understand that the money is simply not there to continue to make the payments - whether a reduced amount or not. Asking her to read this thread might be a good idea, but a lot depends on how she will feel about a bunch of strangers looking at your situation like this - some people feel very strongly on that side of things, and if she is one of those, then showing her the thread could get her hackles up even further.

I'm afraid I think that you may have reached the point where yes, you do need to start taking at least "some" unilateral action. How much of the debt you have currently is just in your sole name? I'm assuming a fair proportion? Stopping the payments to the stuff in your sole name would at least mean that you are slowing down the progression of the accumulation of further debt.

Another thing I'd suggest that might work with getting your wife on board is quite simply lay everything out in front of her - print off the SOA and highlight the income, essential spending figure (including budgeted stuff like car maintenance) and the deficit - point out to her that with every month that passes, that same amount plus a bit is getting added to your debt. Ask her where she thinks the money to continue to pay to the debts can come from - actually try to get her to engage with coming up with some answers. Ask her how she plans to pay for Christmas presents, food etc - not with an attitude of trying to scare her, but more from the perspective of "I've tried everything I can think of to begin to fix this, but I appreciate you're not happy with any of my ideas, so what do YOU think she can and should do next?" It might be helpful to do projections of where you anticipate you will be in one, two and maybe even three years if you continue as you are..in fact anything beyond one year at the most will probably be irrelevant as it realistically isn't going to be too long before you are finding any further access to credit cut off I suspect - and that is when the problems really start, I'm afraid- that is why it is so vital that you get to grips - before your wife finds herself in the supermarket one day without a single card that will let her pay for the week's shopping.

Makingabobor2

Good post @EssexHebridean

fatbelly

enthusiasticsaver said:

Secured lenders are much more aggressive in threatening action as they have the security of your house to fall back on which is why it is a very bad idea to turn unsecured debt into secured. Unfortunately it sounds like this one who spoke to your wife  has overstepped the line and is outright lying to her so I would be complaining about him/her.  They have a code of practice and it sounds like they are not following it. 

A few years ago there was a scheme where IFAs (financial advisers) were funded to hold interviews at CAB offices

As we cannot recommend financial products it seemed like a good idea.

I initially put one of my clients into the scheme and sat in on the interview.

It went exactly like the above.

The scheme lasted one day as the manager threw him out.